Hope
19/11/06 00:24 Filed in: Environmental
Issues
I was
riding my bicycle to work on friday and reflecting on the passing
scenery. The sun split the clouds overhead and lit the ruddy maple
leaves, the city and the river lay to my left, a bank of trees to
my right. My thoughts ran something like, "You know, the city is
beautiful, set here against the mountains, the river is mostly
clean and full of life, the air is clean today, the trees change
colour as though nothing is amiss on the planet. Maybe we'll be ok
-- maybe humanity will survive it's own stupidity and vice. Maybe
it'll all work out somehow." One really couldn't be but optimistic
in such weather. I turned off the river path, up a bike ramp and
onto the sidewalk next to the street above. As I rolled down the
bumpy cobbles I watched a middled-aged man pick up with a plastic
bag what I can only imagine was dogshit, as his little white dog
was standing next to him. "That's nice," I thought. The man
proceeded to wad the bag into a ball, cock back his arm, and, with
the casualness of tossing a ball to his son in a park, throw the
bag of dogshit into the river.
I rolled past in disbelief. Twenty feet past him I hit the brakes, turned around and looked at him, trying to express what wouldn't have come out in Japanese or English - shock, rage, confusion. I looked at the little white bag, now sitting in the shallows of the river and glared at him again. He was looking at me, but I wasn't able to make out his facial expression. Unable to decide what to say or do, I started to ride off again, but then stopped and turned around to look at him again. By this time he was looking around: at the ground, the street - certainly not at the foreigner seething with rage 30 feet in front of him. "Fuck!" was all I could manage as I rolled off to work.
Shock subsided, optimism was shredded, and what was left was depression and bitterness. Here, in a 30 second vignette were all of humanity's problems boiled down. A man feels some social pressures but not others (picks up shit, disposes of it incorrectly), is lazy (tossing it instead of carrying it to the can), is self-centered and unable to cope with the slight discomfort of warm shit in close proximity, and is stupid, as throwing it in the river - in a plastic bag - is far worse than the cosmetic problem of leaving it on the sidewalk in the first place. Then, on the opposite end, a proponent of saving the planet froths and howls incomprehensibly at his offended principles, alternates between sadness and violent impulse. I walk the city and see it's vices, yet know some of the reasons. The smokestacks are industry, the shoppingmalls - jobs, the cars and planes a necessity of travel. But to catch someone innocently going about his daily stupidity hits harder than any grim scientist, spells trouble for humanity more than any foreboding report.
I rolled past in disbelief. Twenty feet past him I hit the brakes, turned around and looked at him, trying to express what wouldn't have come out in Japanese or English - shock, rage, confusion. I looked at the little white bag, now sitting in the shallows of the river and glared at him again. He was looking at me, but I wasn't able to make out his facial expression. Unable to decide what to say or do, I started to ride off again, but then stopped and turned around to look at him again. By this time he was looking around: at the ground, the street - certainly not at the foreigner seething with rage 30 feet in front of him. "Fuck!" was all I could manage as I rolled off to work.
Shock subsided, optimism was shredded, and what was left was depression and bitterness. Here, in a 30 second vignette were all of humanity's problems boiled down. A man feels some social pressures but not others (picks up shit, disposes of it incorrectly), is lazy (tossing it instead of carrying it to the can), is self-centered and unable to cope with the slight discomfort of warm shit in close proximity, and is stupid, as throwing it in the river - in a plastic bag - is far worse than the cosmetic problem of leaving it on the sidewalk in the first place. Then, on the opposite end, a proponent of saving the planet froths and howls incomprehensibly at his offended principles, alternates between sadness and violent impulse. I walk the city and see it's vices, yet know some of the reasons. The smokestacks are industry, the shoppingmalls - jobs, the cars and planes a necessity of travel. But to catch someone innocently going about his daily stupidity hits harder than any grim scientist, spells trouble for humanity more than any foreboding report.